Sunday, March 19, 2006

FOUR POEMS by Scott Glassmanrequisite life

i am opened by dialogue, butcher's knife. bestsellers. cold proof that i have no interior to extend around myself. there's a sprig, however. weakened. pinning us to solitudes, the soft soliloquys. of ebb. of course. rescinded invitations. across the matted ballroom. earth'santelope bees curtaildiving ellipticallyfrom garamond heightsi'm joking. in jails. integers jammed. into j-hammer the notes (home) contiguity is less essential when the double-piped. concatenation. of nailed-up mezzuzah we kiss. (askew) menus of chai. as each stands for. hot-keys. & shortcuts. the peeled egg. unicorns of inkblot: do not enter. stop. one way. U-turn. keep rightvinegar as "never again". neutralizing. their (other) Cage harmonies. gold-leafed plaques searing the tree into minds of who. in their own minds. who in deed comes off as. right minds. think of lasting that long, won't it be. wiped off in crop-circle. dead of lightsitting will be the conclusion of a life. sitting will beget. sitting. sitting. is sitting. sittting and sitting and sitting. Sunday to Sunday to Sunday. to Sunday. we cannot start from the condemned position twice. it's all right there in the appendix. clotted with white mums

had itwhat do you want out of people. what can they give you. that you can't go out. and distill. on your own. a burr tree that explodes three months before they usher in your lineage. first-place ribbons (somebody's ashes) didactic proms (april may june. they line up, same as last year). i want (not) to. understand. (not) even that badly, in tasteless grain / proof. photomosaic. an English of all consonants, even the inappropriate ones. doubled over, cramping. finalesi did not visit Avril 50 today, the most beautiful journals were the words i read moving backwards / forward on the Hill Field walk (what used to be). was never there as i recall. the violent femmes played. new femmes & sayings of the dead. this is not the book i would have chosen to open. i can't shove the pink cyclamens out of sight. crop of secrets. they seem to need. a center. all my bones removed, adios. directing traffic. in fact, i leave before the woman can say what the woman always says to someone. she will barely remember. when the time comes. for her to sleep. in that anemic. windowsome of the poems he writes. (not the woman— yes, but she is there). who am i without. are so stunning. i wish i could have been there. i am embarrassed but. it's possible we all do things. pretending that we were. if only to launch film embers up spiraling. into the unsuppressed. thunder of. would they reluctantly take back snow. deposits itself over Vermont (welcome there). & Boothbay harbor. & dusting the clean Toronto streets. you could lick the crystals of your first taste. off of. tongue, lemming-like. & next . . . the life, what is it. that revolved around. speculating on death. ah, but there's nothing they can catch up to (latch) onto. dispassionately. after-Ritz. he did a fantastic job, he didi don't want you to come into the room yet. cause a breach. on my best days, we're talking. a rupture as wide. i couldn't. there are more of them now, who do we thank? or ask, beg practically. to seal it. i'd go down. i would. promising nothing more than i could promise you. i began by yelling. am confused, leaving that way. what in god's name did. i try at. you were. would be. always good at helping me deduce my fears, leading to. i hope tonight. too surface-prone— he's not carving. again is he. making the cannibalistic seem somewhat. (ornate), a kabbalah carving. i don't think i could stay neutral. not anymore. with all this supposing. where has it gotten us. more precise than. part-morning. part-you

if it suits youTake my arms out. measure them with the most sand-flecked satin string you can procure. visit any five and dime. changing weekly into Restoration Hardware no one said. Take a deep breath and come to this world each morning alive with a song or the ghost of one. Whoever did not consent to. & with this, as though they were my brother's. aligned i persisted. blood persists. his joints (join) the amazing thing about morning is the way the sun breaks through blinds, finds crevices and closets to shed its 118th headache in. then at the moment you open your eyes, opening doors to the expected, putting yourself away. you can feasibly go to the market with nothing but fire engines and mangos in your stomach from the night before. stars had their pathetic appetites. Held them away from you for fear that you would catch. the posterior of. dream’svirus going around (yesterday’s panic). That you would say what came to mind without regard for what you had been. told to do or not do as a child. It’s all there in chapter 10 midway through Prague and Edinburgh. the revelation that he’s only 14, or a year older, was it? i hear the birds, pigeons or black birds, crows no, they would only have occured. antifreeze streams in New Hope— beating their wings like gavels behind dryer vents, breeding, rejoicing (that's how they sing) in March’s timpani chill. (will let up, won't it). right down to the automatic snow that amounts to a pile eight inches below your cervix— faux crest— assuming it’s (mine, it’s mine). mine

all the thoughts in my head at the momentdepraved (-ived) psycho bumb-grotto. goulash & carrots (peeled). winterhostile. i am fortunate to be breathing. i am fortunate to be breathing. used glass-pronged teeth. nail-bitten-to-a-nub. dribs / drabs. good to see you again. good to see. good good good. personality of a clown fish. it rains minnows. thank manna for the handout. sure good to see you at the party. later, friend. a toast with kahlua and cuervo. your shoelaces are shortlaces. untied and ready for the bridge

Scott Glassman lives in Palmyra, NJ and works for a medical testing company. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Iowa Review, CutBank, Epicenter, Cranky, South Carolina Review, Sentence, The Argotist, and others. He has a poetry blog